Collective Efforts for Success in Rural Communities

• In Event: Language Learning from Familiar to Formal: The importance of multilingual education in promoting integration and identity in multi-cultural settings.

Proposal

South Africa’s education system continues to bear the scars of apartheid (separateness), which deliberately underfunded and fragmented schooling for the majority of the population. The legacies of this divide are most acutely felt in rural areas, where schools remain under-resourced, geographically isolated, and structurally disadvantaged. Children in rural provinces often face overcrowded classrooms, shortages of qualified teachers, poor infrastructure, and minimal access to reading materials or technology. These conditions contribute to persistent learning gaps that begin in the early grades and compound over time.
In May 2023, the release of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2021), the first such study since the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed that a staggering 81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any language. These findings have contributed to a more urgent and nuanced understanding of South Africa’s learning crisis. While foundational literacy has long been an area of concern, the scale and persistence of these gaps, especially among learners in rural schools, highlight the need for targeted, innovative interventions that go beyond traditional remediation.
In rural South Africa, the L2F2 model has transformative potential. Many schools in areas such as the Northern Cape, Free State, and KwaZulu-Natal, serve farming or mining communities where poverty, migration, and limited access to services perpetuate educational disadvantage. Teachers are overburdened, and parents - many of whom were denied quality education themselves during apartheid - struggle to provide academic support at home. The result is entrenched intergenerational inequality.
English has always been viewed as a superior language in schools and less value has been placed on a learner's ability to grasp their own language. Using L2F2 methodology places an emphasis on learning one's home language and then using those principles to acquire an additional language.
This presentation will cover collaborative efforts that are being implemented to decrease learning gaps in older learners in South Africa using the L2F2 methodology.

Author

• Claudia Stanfield, The DG Murray Trust